This Time Around
by Sunshine170
Summary: Back home, after all these years of staying away, of burning bridges slowly, of running away from mistakes and it would stand to reason fate would send her right back there. Fringe/Twin Peaks AU.


**Author Note: **

Things you should know -

1. This is a loose crossover between Twin Peaks and Fringe and when I say loose... I do mean very. If you're familiar with the show great, if not, its still fine:) There will be some characters and references but mostly its just Fringe in an AU.

2. Red Lincoln is from the blue verse in this story.

* * *

If there were some things you absolutely needed to know about Olivia Dunham, it was that she was a sharp shooter, that she liked her coffee black with one sugar and that she hated yellow M & Ms…

There was also the fact that she'd been in love with the same boy since she was nine. But that was neither here nor there.

It was neither romantic nor memorable, or even an insipid imitation of a typical school girl crush where she doodled hearts with red markers with their initials and became a mess of idiotic giggles in his presence.

There was never anything like that.

She only remembers that she was wearing her favorite blue denim jacket when he held her hand that time she cried and told her with all the wisdom that comes with being nine that it would be okay. That one day she would be grown up and that no one would be able to hurt her and then she wouldn't cry.

And that she could tell him what had made her cry, if she wanted to, because he wouldn't tell anyone….

If you asked her about it, which you shouldn't really, but if you did… she wouldn't be able to tell you how it happened and when she knew. Just that it did and she knew it did. That there was a boy and that she fell in love with him.

And that seventeen years later, she was wearing a grey dress with black lace at the hem and a pair of heels that seemed to be created with the intention to torture when she watched him get married to another woman...

And that she didn't cry.

* * *

"You want me to go to Twin Peaks?" Olivia asks slowly, as if seeking confirmation. She looks at her boss's signature impassive face, trying to read a joke in there somewhere. Some hint that there was a gotcha coming up.

It's not unheard of. FBI water cooler gossip still runs wild with the tale of what has been termed ominously as the great locker room prank of 1986, something that Broyles was responsible for orchestrating…or so they say.

Or… it's possible she had made a mistake hearing.

But he simply nods, looking utterly serious. "We've caught a case. One that looks like a Fringe event from what I can glean so far." He hands her file. "You leave tomorrow."

"I can't go." She stubbornly shakes her head, surprised at the words leaving her mouth. She's never turned down a case. Never been so quick to refuse to work. But she sets the file down on the desk, without even looking at it. "I am already backlogged as it is. Send someone else. Lincoln can run point. I'll coordinate from Boston."

"We can't send Lee. He's still new. You've been with Fringe division longer and you're better suited for this case."

"But sir…" She tries to protest. "I can't investigate a case in Twin Peaks. It's…"

"Home…I know." He finishes for her. "Which is what makes it an ideal fit. You know better than anyone, the hostility federal authorities face in small towns like this. People get suspicious of a stranger coming around; poking around in their affairs… it makes sense if it's somebody they know and trust, especially given the subject matter."

"You assume that just because it is a small place, that everybody knows me." She rolls her eyes…enough to skirt the lines of insubordination even if not quite making the cut, enough to get his attention at any rate.

Predictably, he raises an eyebrow.

"Stands to reason most of them would. It has a recorded population of something close to 3, 940."

"3,969." Olivia automatically corrects him, the number etched in her photographic memory. "That still doesn't give me any special advantage over any other agent. And I haven't been there in years. Everyone I know has moved away or left… "

"It gives us a start. Which is more than what we'd have with anybody else." Broyles says then, his voice ringing with that tone which meant no more arguments, one that even Olivia knows not to protest.

"This is final Dunham. You're going. You'll be coordinating with the local sheriff's department there."

"You've spoken to Sheriff Francis?" She sighs, picking up the file and what's left of her pride from the desk, knowing this was out of her hands. She thumbs through the file idly, displaying a fraction of her usual enthusiasm for a new case.

"It's Sheriff Bishop actually."

"What?" She looks up so fast she almost pulls a tendon in her neck.

" What?"

"You said Bishop?" She repeats dumbly, sounding like a child who didn't understand.

"Yeah."

"As in Peter Bishop?"

"We didn't get to a first name basis Dunham." He looks less patient now, surely wondering how this was relevant. "But I assume it's probably him. Someone you know."

Oh you know. Just the man I've been trying to get over for years now.

"It was a long time ago." She gives him a tight smile. "I didn't know he was Sheriff now."

"Well now you know. I am sure you'll have more than opportunity to catch up when you get there." He nods vaguely, diverting his attention back to the folder in front of him, effectively signaling that they were done.

"Fantastic." Olivia says dryly, getting up to leave, the file clutched tight between her fingers.

Back home, after all these years of staying away, of burning bridges slowly, of running away from mistakes and it would stand to reason fate would send her right back there.

Back to Twin Peaks, back to Peter.

She was going home.

* * *

_There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?_  
_Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself._

LIT 2300 – Modern American Literature

They read Still Life with Woodpecker in class; it was raining outside that day. He was distracted….her skin rubbing against his as they sat next to each other. From the angle in which she was bent over her book, he could see down her top.

If he had paid attention, maybe he would have heard someone answer, he would have known then…

Because seriously, how do you make love stay? Force it to outlive its oppressive materiality, that elusive essence that you bind and fold into memories and things, lifeless objects of little consequence.

Dead flowers pressed into journals and trinkets stored in boxes, photographs of events long gone and forgotten, a smile that no longer exists, but still frozen on film, the soundtrack of laughter missing.

Who curates life in the lifeless; these little projects where people hoard pieces of soul in things and try to grasp back from death what it stole from them?

It's kinda desperate, Peter thinks. And it almost never works.

He should know. Nothing works.

Memory is like milk sometimes. It comes with a shelf life, except no one knows how long that is. Let it sit after its expiration date and it goes stale.

But how long do you hold on to something that's over…telling yourself it's okay to not move on.

Memory is also paying the dues of the past. And Peter doesn't know yet… if he's done paying?

Chrome finish, matted stainless steel, the 7 piece Ikea cookware set. It had seemed so necessary then.

"You don't even know how to cook." He'd teased her when they went to register for wedding gifts. "What do you need all this stuff for anyway?

"I could take classes, we could do it together." She had said contemplatively, eyes set on some hypothetical future day where they would be standing side by side, chopping salad vegetables with the élan of a Su-Chef.

"That'd be nice right?"

"And also imaginary. It's never going to happen." He'd chuckled.

"We'll do it." She'd said then, dead serious. "Before we're 30, we'll take cooking classes together. Okay?"

He was in love. He would have said yes if she'd asked him to amputate his own arm.

"Okay."

She died before she turned 30.

The foolishness of their marriage is what Peter remembers most of all. An elaborate joke they played on themselves because they'd do just about anything to avoid boredom. They got married because they could, because they were looking for something to do, to add a little excitement to life – the prospect of playing house together seemed new, different, and silly in all the ways that made sense – their own parody of domesticity.

Neither of them counted on how much they'd love it.

And neither of them counted on it ending this way.

"Peter…"

"Yeah?" He mumbles absently looking at the man in front of him, clipboard in his hand.

Patient, smiling…the smile that he has often see air-hostesses wear.

What do they really teach grief counselors? He wonders…. Do they sit around in school thinking about how to fake smile at the bereaved?

"I asked you a question?"

"You did?"

"About your wife's death. It's been a year today since she's gone."

"I can count." He nods. "What about it?"

"I asked you if you want to talk about how that makes you feel?"

_Yeah…I am mad that we never got to use that stupid cookware set, he thinks to himself- Chrome finish, matted stainless steel._

_I am mad that we never got to take those cooking classes we wouldn't have finished anyway._

_I am mad that I have to come here week after week and prove to you that I am doing okay just so my mother will get off my case._

_I am mad of everybody in this town treating me like I am made of glass, giving me those fucking pitying smiles._

_And I am especially mad that my wife promised me that we would spend our lives together and then she went and she died on me._

Peter shrugs. "I loved her and she died a year ago. What else is there to talk about?"

* * *

"So Twin Peaks…. the one-horse town that Olivia Dunham calls home." Lincoln says, wry smile on his face as he grabs the chair next to her, helping himself to the file she had just set down on the desk. "What is it like? Lots of boys in Letterman jackets sitting around with their high school sweethearts in the Malt shop?"

Olivia doesn't even bother with an eye roll, more than used to her partner's antics by now. Lincoln had joined them a year ago; Broyles had recruited him from some unit of special ops, very hush hush.

A year in the FBI and he still refuses to dress the part, foregoing the black suit and tie for cargos and combat gear, hair a carefully crafted mess of just got up from bed. Broyles lets it slide because he gets the work done, because he's good and because it's hard to hate him.

God knows she's tried…

Because under that peculiar brand confidence, the kind that borders on narcissism was someone who was really loyal, fiercely so.

And the man was brilliant…even if annoying at times. He reminds her of … never mind.

Olivia takes his bait, knowing he wasn't going to stop if she didn't. "Yeah, because everyone there lives in a 1950s time loop of your Archie comics stereotype." She shrugs trying not to smile.

Predictably, he simply grins some, determined to rile her with his fake ignorance. " Oh comes on now…spill. I bet you made cheerleader. Did the quarterback take you to prom?"

"No the captain of the swim team did." She doesn't look up from her file. "And we don't have football in Twin Peaks."

"You don't?"

"We're a hockey town Lincoln." She slams the folder in her hands with more force than necessary, looking at him then with a stern expression. "And we take it very seriously."

"Sounds like my kinda place." He says cheerfully then, noticeably toning down the smartass setting though. "When do we leave?"

"We don't." she shakes her head. "I do. I am going to head out and find out what's happening. Turns out there's something to it, you can follow me up there."

"Oh… but I had our road trip mixed cd burnt and everything."

"And I am sure that was hours well spent." She smirks, looking at his rather forlorn expression, almost like a puppy kicked to the curb which she suspects is not that far off an analogy. "But I need you here to take point on a few things before we focus all our attention to Twin Peaks."

"Aren't you going to need somebody to share the workload with?" He looks at her then, something resembling real concern crossing his otherwise nonchalant demeanor.

She knows it has little to do with her ability and more to do with the case, the details of which he's already skimmed through.

All those girls…

"We're coordinating with the Sheriff's department. I'll be fine." She assures him. "They'll be able to provide me with any man power I need."

He looks unconvinced. "You're going to seriously work with some country hick on a Fringe case, Olivia?"

"Peter is not some country hick." Olivia snorts, forgetting herself. "He happens to be a genius."

"Peter?" An eyebrow goes up. Lincoln's staring at her with a hint of surprise. Something bordering on curiosity.

Unwittingly she's given something away. When it comes to Peter, something always gives her away.

"Yeah. He's the Sheriff." She explains, trying to look casual.

"And?"

"And what?"

"You know him." It's not a question.

"Old friend." She shrugs.

"How old?"

"Very…" She sighs. "We grew up together. Anything else?"

"He's really a genius? Or is that just a figure of speech?"

"He is really a genius." She smiles looking at his slightly miffed expression. Lincoln didn't like people being smarter than him. "50 points north of it actually. He has a recorded IQ of 190."

"Really?" There's a hint of intrigue in his tone. "And this genius decided to be a small town Sheriff? What gives?"

"He liked to play cowboy as a child." She shrugs pretending she doesn't see the curiosity brimming in his eyes. But Lincoln is nothing if not persistent.

"He didn't decide to be sheriff… he's not actually…it's complicated Lincoln." She concedes after a second of his staring.

"We specialize in complicated." He quips, looking not even a little bit contrite. " Come on, if I can handle computer viruses that melt people's brains, I think I can process your friend's backstory."

She nods, taking off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, knowing he wasn't going to let this slide.

"Peter is a forensic consultant. At least he used to be anyway." She explains. "He has multiple backgrounds in advanced sciences…you name it, he's probably studied it. He used to consult with law enforcement units, the military, private security firms, laboratories…even the Interpol has called on his services."

She can tell he's impressed.

"This guy sounds like someone who should be on our team."

"We couldn't afford to hire him if we pooled all our incomes together." She laughs. "He doesn't do full time assignments in any case."

"And yet… he's now sheriff of Twin Peaks?" He asks disbelievingly.

"It would seem so." She nods.

"And you don't know why?"

"I didn't even know he was working there." She chews her lip thoughtfully, surprised that somehow the details had escaped her.

But then she hadn't even spoken to him for over a year.

She hasn't spoken to him since that night…

"And?"

"And that's all I know Lincoln." She puts up her hands. "Honest."

"See I thought there'd be more here. Man makes some interesting choices, I must say." Lincoln rolls his eyes, turning his attention to the file. "Sounds like a hot mess."

"Yeah well…" She shrugs, trying not to dwell on Peter. "Love makes people do strange things I suppose."

"So… it's about a girl?" He smiles in some internalized wisdom.

"Isn't it always?"

"What happened?"

Olivia shakes her head, trying not to show too much emotion.

"She died. That's what happened."


End file.
